Two lost souls; another winner from writer/director Tom Tykwer. Running time: 130 minutes. Rated R (violence). In German, with subtitles. At the Lincoln Plaza, the Angelika.

————

THE couple in Tom Tykwer’s absorbing “The Princess and the Warrior” meet when he climbs on top of her to perform an emergency tracheotomy under a truck.

This meeting – following a dazzling chase sequence that recalls Tykwer’s “Run Lola Run” – sounds like the opening of the Jennifer Lopez clinker “Angel Eyes,” which was also about a psychologically damaged couple who meet by chance.

But “Princess” is vastly more explicit (be warned) and intelligent. It also leads to much darker – and more interesting – places.

Just before the accident, Bodo (newcomer Benno Furmann, a real find), recently discharged from the Army, is being pursued through the streets of Wuppertal, Germany, by attendants from the gas station he’s just robbed.

The chase distracts the driver of a tanker truck, who mows down Sissi (Franka Potente of “Run Lola Run”), a nurse at a psychiatric institution.

After two months of recovery, Sissi, who’s unaware of the circumstances that led to Bodo saving her life (he was hiding from a cop), tracks down her benefactor, about whom she’s developed romantic fantasies.

Sissi takes him to the mental institution, where she was born and her mother was a patient. She helps Bodo invent a new identity and elude the authorities.

The story takes many unpredictable turns as these two lost souls – beautifully acted by Furmann and Potente – slowly realize they were meant for each other.

“The Princess and the Warrior” has a much more deliberate pace than the hyperkinetic “Run Lola Run,” which ran all of 80 minutes. This one runs 130 – five minutes shorter than it was when shown at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, but still about 10 minutes too long.

But that’s a small cavil about a movie that goes so deeply into human behavior with such visual flair.